Miss Porters School

Love (letters) hath a price: $134500 when author is Jackie Kennedy

(CNN) -- What price love -- or more accurately, what price a love letter?

When it comes to such letters written by a teenage Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, that price is $134,500, according to the auctioneer Christie's.

And if you like happy endings, it was "a French lady" -- perhaps appropriately enough -- who paid that amount Thursday and is now the owner of 22 letters and a printed telegram authored by Onassis, said Christie's spokeswoman Sung-Hee Park in New York City.

The letters, which Onassis sent to her then-boyfriend at Harvard in the late 1940s, were valued between $25,000 and $35,000 prior to the auction, held Thursday morning, Park said. The letters were written before Onassis met her future husband and future president John F. Kennedy, who also studied at Harvard.

"The buyer bought it over the phone, and they just wanted to be identified as a French lady who is a very big fan of Jackie Kennedy," Park told CNN. "It's always great when a piece of art goes for the estimate, but when something goes much higher than the estimate, it's a great surprise."

The letters reveal the personality of the future first lady on the matters of adolescent love, kissing and a loathing of attending a finishing school.

The auction house described the writings as "the earliest Jackie Kennedy letters," displaying "a funny, spirited, at times cynical young woman, but one with great intelligence and a strong will of her own."

In a letter dated October 10, 1946, the 17-year-old Miss Bouvier reveals her "cooling enthusiasm" in a letter to Harvard boyfriend R. Beverley Corbin Jr., "who seems to have been badly hurt when Jackie refused to kiss him during one visit," according to Christie's.

Corbin was 21 at the time. Corbin's son, Bev, of New York, owned the letters and put them up for auction, he told CNN.

"I do love you though -- and can love you without kissing you every time I see you and I hope you understand that," Onassis declares.

Then, on January 20, 1947, she writes to her boyfriend about her definition of true love.

"I've always thought of being in love as being willing to do anything for the other person -- starve to buy them bread and not mind living in Siberia with them -- and I've always thought that every minute away from them would be hell -- so looking at it that (way) I guess I'm not in love with you," Onassis writes.

Jackie Kennedy's letters to Harvard boyfriend snapped up by French ...

When you become world famous and then on to a legend, your life is thrown out into the public where rich antique collectors can grab everything you once owned. That is the way of the rich and the beautiful and the only relief is that it means your treasures are going to be preserved rather than buried underground. Christie’s has been able to slam the hammer on 22 ‘love’ letters by a teenage Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis priced at $134,500 to a French lady. The letters were written by Jackie to her then boyfriend R. Beverley Corbin Jr. she spoke about her ideas of being in love. In total there were 75 pages of content that was written between 1945 and 1951 on her personal stationery with the Miss Porter’s School letterhead. She also mentioned her school in the letters.

Miss Porter's School Alumni, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Dina Merrill, Edith Bouvier Beale, Cissy Patterson, Brenda Frazier

Miss Porter's School, a history

Miss Porter's School, Miss Porter's School Alumni, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Dina Merrill, Edith Bouvier Beale, Cissy Patterson

Miss Porter's School, A History in Documents 1847-1948 : The School and Its Students 1847-1900,the Alumnae and Their Social Commitment 1877-1948

Miss Porter's School: The school and its students, 1847-1900